Chapter 874: Killing the envoy to destroy the evidence, a scheme to frame others

Chen Yan's horizontal blade was still dripping blood, the blade tip pointing at the four people pressed to the ground beside the fire basin.

"Who are you?"

Tu Lan's voice tightened, his fingers gripping the blade hilt and pushing forward half a step.

"Found in the interlayer of the back tent when searching their tents, hidden between two layers of ox hide, almost missed."

Chen Yan walked to the person closest to him and kicked his shoulder blade with his boot tip.

That person was kicked and flipped over, face up, the red light of the fire basin shining exactly on his face.

A fair face, completely different from the rough skin of the grassland herdsmen, eyebrows trimmed neatly, a trimmed short beard left at the corners of his mouth, dark patterns embroidered with gold thread on the inside of the collar.

Chen Yan's eyeballs swept down a circle and swept to the silver-inlaid belt buckle at his waist.

Dove bird pattern.

This was not the leader's pattern of the Helan Clan, nor was it a specification that any tribal chief should use.

Amu Ri squeezed in from behind, saw that belt at a glance, and his voice changed tone.

"Leader, this is a person from the Royal Court."

Chen Yan didn't respond, squatted down, and tore open the leather armor on that person's chest, inside wearing a dark purple long gown of extremely fine texture, the texture of the fabric shining with a layer of brocade luster that was not easy to distinguish under the firelight.

No one on the grassland wore this kind of clothes.

Only the nobles and special envoys of the Royal Court were qualified to wear them.

Chen Yan grabbed that person's collar and dragged him from the ground into mid-air.

"Who are you?"

That person's lips were broken, blood flowing down his chin, his voice trembling, but still trying to maintain a condescending tone.

"I am Ashina Bolu, the tax-collecting special envoy personally appointed by the Great Khan. You barbarian, let go of me. Do you know what you are doing?"

Chen Yan's fingers tightened by a fraction on his collar.

"Tax-collecting special envoy?"

Ashina Bolu struggled twice, couldn't struggle, and his voice pulled up.

"Chen Yan, you have already committed the crime of exterminating your tribe. You rushed into the Helan Clan to kill and set fire; this is more serious than rebelling against the Royal Court. The Great Khan's iron cavalry will grind your tribe into broken bones."

His gaze turned around in the tent and saw Wu Da's broken head on the ground, his face turning pale by another three points.

"You even killed Wu Da; you are crazy, you are really crazy."

Chen Yan gripped him as if gripping a snake, the smooth fabric slipping out from between his fingers.

Amu Ri leaned in from the side, his voice crushed into pieces.

"Leader, special envoy of the Royal Court, this matter is big."

Tu Lan also opened his mouth, his voice trembling.

"Leader, why not let him go and let him go back to tell the Great Khan that we only had a private feud with the Helan Clan and it has nothing to do with the Royal Court."

Chen Yan's mouth twitched.

Ashina Bolu seized this gap, his voice pulling up by another two points.

"Right, let me go, and I can plead for you in front of the Great Khan. You only need to hand over the head, hand over everything you snatched from the Helan Clan, and then tie yourself up and send yourself to the Royal Court."

His eyeballs spun rapidly in the firelight.

"The Great Khan might spare your entire tribe and only kill you alone."

Chen Yan stared at him.

Ashina Bolu added another sentence.

"If you don't let me go, the Great Khan can mobilize thirty thousand iron cavalry within ten days. You Chen Yan Clan don't even have a pasture, where are you going to run?"

The generals in the tent looked at each other, and several people's hands had already loosened on the horizontal blade hilts.

Chen Yan's voice leaked out from between his teeth.

"You said the Great Khan will only kill me alone?"

Ashina Bolu nodded, squeezing out an ugly smile on his face.

"As long as you cooperate, the Great Khan is reasonable."

Chen Yan stared at his fair face squeezing out a smile, something rolling in his brain, rolling back and forth three or four times, and suddenly it went quiet.

After it went quiet, the strength in his hand didn't loosen, but tightened by another fraction.

"Ashina Bolu, you just said, the Great Khan will only kill me alone?"

Ashina Bolu's smile froze on his face.

Chen Yan's voice sank by half.

"In the Battle of Gold Mountain, my Chen Yan Clan sent one thousand five hundred young and strong men, and one thousand one hundred died. The Great Khan didn't even reward a single cow."

His finger joints creaked in Ashina Bolu's collar.

"Three days of White Disaster, my tribesmen were so hungry they gnawed on frozen horse bones, and the Royal Court didn't send a single grain of millet."

Ashina Bolu's face began to turn blue-purple.

"I sent people to the Helan Clan to borrow grain, your people beat my envoy until his nose bridge broke, and even said the Chen Yan Clan's women should be sent to the Helan Clan to herd cattle."

Chen Yan's voice shattered in the crackling sound of the fire basin.

"You are telling me now that the Great Khan is reasonable?"

His horizontal blade was pulled out from his waist.

Ashina Bolu's eyeballs stared to the limit, his voice sharp to the point of being out of tune.

"You cannot kill me, I am the Great Khan's special envoy, killing the special envoy is killing the Great Khan's face, it is the crime of exterminating the tribe, you cannot."

Chen Yan threw him to the ground.

Ashina Bolu's back of the head hit the frozen mud ground, a dull sound, his eyes flashing.

He still wanted to shout, the sound just reaching his throat.

The horizontal blade had already slashed down.

The blade entered from the middle of the top of the head, following the cranial suture downward, breaking open the bone and brain, the shattered skull fragments splashing onto Chen Yan's wrist guard.

Ashina Bolu's body twitched twice on the ground, his lips still maintaining the posture of opening, the last word never being able to roll out from his throat.

No one spoke in the tent.

Chen Yan stood beside the corpse, his chest heaving like a broken bellows, the horizontal blade hanging with white brain matter and red broken meat.

Amu Ri's lips moved several times, and it took a long time to squeeze out a sentence.

"Leader, you hacked the Royal Court's special envoy."

Chen Yan's lips were also trembling.

Tu Lan turned to look at the other three people pressed to the ground.

"What about these three?"

Chen Yan didn't hesitate.

"Kill."

Three horizontal blades fell almost at the same time, three corpses piled up beside Ashina Bolu, the mud ground in the tent soaked soft by blood.

It was quiet for more than ten breaths.

A cold wind poured in from outside the tent, blowing the charcoal fire in the fire basin and flashing it a few times.

Tu Lan squatted down, rummaged through Ashina Bolu's corpse, and pulled out something from the dark pocket of his inner shirt.

His hand trembled the moment he pulled it out.

"Leader, look at this."

Chen Yan took it over.

A gold plaque the size of a palm, cast with a golden wolf spreading its wings on the front, the wolf mouth holding a sun pearl, the back engraved with a line of Rouran characters, and a vermilion seal stamped under the characters.

Golden Wolf Order.

Every child of every tribe on the grassland had been taught the meaning of this thing since they could remember.

Seeing the Golden Wolf Order is like seeing the Great Khan himself.

Chen Yan's hand gripping the gold plaque trembled.

Tu Lan pulled out another ox-hide document wrapped in oilcloth from the corpse, opened it and looked at it, his face turning whiter than the snow outside the tent.

"Tax-collecting document, Nuhe Ti's great seal, written on it is that this winter month, Royal Court special envoy Ashina Bolu to the Helan Clan, collecting five hundred warhorses, one thousand cattle, three thousand sheep, and an additional two hundred young and strong herdsmen."

The generals in the tent all saw that Golden Wolf Order and that scroll of document.

One after another, the color on their faces turned from red to white, from white to gray.

Chen Yan's knees softened.

His body retreated two steps, his boot heel hit Wu Da's corpse, a stagger, and he sat on the mud ground full of blood stains.

The Golden Wolf Order rolled out of his hand, spinning twice in the muddy water beside the fire basin before stopping.

"Leader."

Amu Ri's voice carried a hoarseness after being crushed by fear.

"You killed the Royal Court's tax-collecting special envoy."

Chen Yan sat in the pool of blood, his two hands supporting on the mud ground, ten fingers deeply inserted into the mud slurry mixed with frozen soil and blood water.

Someone in the tent began to panic.

An old elder who managed the herd stood out, his voice trembling.

"Leader, big trouble, the crime of killing the special envoy, the Royal Court will grind us into dust."

Another general's face turned blue, his voice flipping up a tone.

"Surrender, it's still in time, tie up the leader and send him to the Royal Court, send the Golden Wolf Order and the document back as they were, and say it was Chen Yan's own doing, and it has nothing to do with the whole tribe."

Once this was said, the tent immediately divided into two sides.

Amu Ri roared while gripping the horizontal blade.

"Fart, you want to sell the leader?"

That general was anxious.

"It's not that I want to sell, this is to save the whole tribe."

Tu Lan stood in the middle, his voice shattered into an unrecognizable state.

"Save the whole tribe? You think tying up the leader and sending him to the Royal Court will keep you alive? When has Nuhe Ti ever been reasonable? In the Battle of Gold Mountain, we died more than one thousand people, he didn't even ask."

The old elder leaned on his crutch, trembling as he spoke.

"But if we don't send the leader over, the Royal Court's large army will come, and the Chen Yan Clan won't be able to escape a single one."

The arguing sound in the tent became louder and louder, the horizontal blades hitting the wrist guards and making a chaotic clanging sound, and two generals had already started pushing each other.

Chen Yan sat on the ground, his two eyes straight, his lips stuck with dried blood stains, unable to say a single word.

The tent curtain lifted.

While the wind and snow poured in, a figure stepped in.

Gao Jiong.

His fur coat was covered with crushed snow, the collar turned up, revealing the dark narrow collar inside, the layer of yellow mud on his face not clear in the firelight, but after his eyes swept across everyone in the tent, the arguing sound in the tent stopped.

He walked to Chen Yan.

Raised his hand.

Slapped Chen Yan on the left cheek.

The force of this slap threw Chen Yan's head to the right, five red marks instantly appearing on half of his face, a mouthful of blood foam splashing out from the corner of his mouth, spraying onto Ashina Bolu's corpse beside him.

Everyone in the tent was stunned.

Amu Ri's blade was just raised halfway, Gao Jiong's gaze swept over, and his arm stiffened in the air.

Gao Jiong's voice was not loud, but every word hit the ground with a sound.

"Trash."

Chen Yan raised his head, his left cheek swollen by a layer, his eyes full of red threads.

"You..."

Gao Jiong bent down to pick up the Golden Wolf Order on the ground, turned it in his hand, and threw it back in front of Chen Yan.

"This official gave you blades, gave you tactics, gave you the right timing, let you fight the Helan Clan, and you didn't even search the tent clean before killing people here?"

Chen Yan's mouth opened twice.

"I didn't know he was a person from the Royal Court."

Gao Jiong stared at him.

"Didn't know? A person wearing dark purple brocade was searched out in the tent, you didn't even ask for his identity before killing him, are you fighting a war or killing pigs?"

Chen Yan was choked by this sentence until the muscles on his face twitched twice.

Gao Jiong's gaze moved away from his face and swept toward the generals in the tent whose faces were gray.

"What were you arguing about just now? Surrender?"

The old elder spoke.

"Lord, the crime of killing the Royal Court's special envoy, sending the leader to the Royal Court to plead guilty might still have a glimmer of hope."

Gao Jiong looked at him, the corner of his mouth pulling to the side.

"You tie up the leader and send him up, and Nuhe Ti will let the Chen Yan Clan go?"

The old elder's crutch poked twice on the mud ground.

"At least better than fighting to the end."

Gao Jiong took a step forward, his boots stepping beside Ashina Bolu's corpse, stepping out a bloody footprint.

"Old man, this official asks you one thing."

The old elder looked at him.

"What is written on the Royal Court's tax-collecting document?"

The old elder was stunned for a moment.

Gao Jiong took the scroll of ox-hide document from Tu Lan's hand and unfolded it in front of the fire basin.

"Five hundred warhorses, one thousand cattle, three thousand sheep, and two hundred young and strong men."

He turned the document around to the people in the tent.

"This is the number for the Helan Clan, you guess, who is the next tribe to collect taxes?"

The tent was quiet.

Gao Jiong rolled up the document and tapped it twice in his palm.

"Chen Yan Clan."

Chen Yan's pupils shrank.

Gao Jiong's voice pressed down by two degrees.

"Ashina Bolu came to the Helan Clan to collect taxes, the next stop is the Chen Yan Clan. Do you think he brought the Golden Wolf Order to the grassland for fun?"

He threw the document in front of Chen Yan.

"Does your Chen Yan Clan have five hundred warhorses to hand over now? Are there one thousand cattle and three thousand sheep?"

Chen Yan's lips trembled.

"No."

Gao Jiong put his hands behind his back.

"If you don't have it, you can't hand it over; if you can't hand it over, it's tax resistance. The result of tax resistance, you know better than this official, it's no different from killing the special envoy, it's also exterminating the tribe."

The generals in the tent looked at each other, and the old elder's crutch no longer poked on the mud ground.

Gao Jiong continued to speak, his voice cold to the bone marrow.

"You surrender, you die. You don't surrender, you also die. The difference is, surrender is dying on your knees, and also implicating your wives and children to be slaves of the Royal Court. Not surrendering at least means having blades in your hands, having grain, and having three hundred li of wind-sheltered pasture."

His words smashed out three breaths of silence in the tent.

Chen Yan propped up his body from the mud ground, his voice hoarse as if it were about to break.

"Then what to do?"

Gao Jiong squatted down and looked at him levelly.

"Destroy the evidence."

Chen Yan looked at him.

Gao Jiong's finger pointed at Ashina Bolu's corpse.

"The faces of these four people must rot, rot until even their own mothers wouldn't recognize them."

He pointed at the corpses of other Helan Clan high-level officials in the tent.

"All the armored generals of the Helan Clan, all the people whose identities can be identified, must all be disfigured, skinned, the bones broken, the flesh on their faces scraped off, and the teeth pulled out and thrown into different places."

Amu Ri's Adam's apple rolled.

"And then?"

Gao Jiong stood up, walked to the tent entrance, and glanced toward the west direction.

"Then frame others."

He turned back.

"In the Battle of Gold Mountain, the Turks were beaten and scattered, and there are thousands of remnants wandering in the northwest direction of the grassland. You have heard this news, right?"

Chen Yan nodded.

Gao Jiong's finger drew a line in the air.

"The Turkic remnants had nowhere to go, frozen and hungry in the White Disaster, seeing the Helan Clan's fat sheep, they rushed up to rob them. The Helan Clan was outnumbered, slaughtered by the Turks, the granary burned, the leader killed, what's the problem?"

The air in the tent condensed for half a breath.

Tu Lan reacted first.

"The weapons used by the Turks are different from ours."

Gao Jiong took out a palm-sized cloth bag from under his fur coat and unfolded it on the ground.

Wrapped in the cloth bag were six short curved blades, the hilt engraved with the unique three-pronged deer horn pattern of the Turks, and there were several old gaps and rust on the blade body.

"These six are the standard short curved blades of the Turks, stock from this official's cart."

He pushed the blades in front of Chen Yan.

"Throw a few on the battlefield, stick them beside a few corpses, and nail a few Turkic-style arrowheads onto the tent pillars."

He flipped out two wolf-skin arm guards from under the cloth bag, the inside of the arm guards sewn with the tribal totem of the Turks.

"Tear these two arm guards to pieces and throw them on the edge of the camp, making it look like the Turks jumped down from a high place and tore off the protective gear."

Chen Yan gripped the six short curved blades, his fingers turning twice on the hilt.

"What if the Royal Court sends people to investigate?"

Gao Jiong's voice was flat without fluctuation.

"Investigate what? The corpses are unrecognizable, the weapons are Turkic, the scene is the trace of a Turkic attack, the White Disaster weather buried all the hoof prints, no one knows which road the Turkic remnants came from, investigating is also investigating in vain."

He picked up the Golden Wolf Order from the ground and wiped the blood stains on it.

"Destroy this Golden Wolf Order and the tax-collecting document together with Ashina Bolu's corpse, the Royal Court won't even be able to find evidence that the special envoy arrived at the Helan Clan."

Chen Yan's fingers gripped tightly on the hilt of the short curved blade.

"You have been preparing Turkic weapons in your cart?"

Gao Jiong looked at him.

"This official does things, and never leaves fewer than three exits."

Chen Yan was stunned for two breaths, then suddenly bounced up from the ground.

"Amu Ri."

Amu Ri's body leaned forward a step.

"Here."

"Take people to go, all corpses must be disfigured, skin peeled, bones broken, teeth pulled out and buried in different places, nail a few Turkic arrowheads on the tent pillars, and scatter the short curved blades all over the battlefield."

Amu Ri responded and rushed out of the tent.

Chen Yan looked at Tu Lan again.

"Burn the tax-collecting document and the Golden Wolf Order, and pour the ashes into the snow pile at the bottom of the riverbed."

Tu Lan took the two things and ran away.

Only Chen Yan and Gao Jiong were left in the tent.

Chen Yan's breathing had not yet stabilized, the heaving of his chest under the leather armor like beating drums.

Gao Jiong sat on the edge of the low platform, took out the Mingjing Si iron plaque from his boot shaft, and turned it slowly between his fingertips.

Chen Yan stared at that iron plaque.

"What kind of person are you?"

Gao Jiong tucked the iron plaque back into his boot shaft.

"The leader doesn't need to know what kind of person this official is, the leader only needs to know that from now on, every word this official says can let your tribe live one more day."

The dull sound of Amu Ri directing his men to smash bones came from outside the tent, mixed with the howling of the wind and snow, stirring into a pot of turbid noise under the night sky.

Chen Yan sat beside Ashina Bolu's pool of blood, still gripping the horizontal blade stained with brain matter, the blood on his fingers already solidified into a black hard shell.

He lowered his head, his voice shattered in the sound of the wind.

"I have no retreat."

Gao Jiong stood up from the low platform and patted the dust on his fur coat.

"Leader, from the moment you raised your blade to hack the Helan Clan, the retreat no longer existed."

He walked to the tent entrance and turned his head once before lifting the tent curtain.

"But the road can be walked forward."

The tent curtain fell, the wind and snow poured in, and the last piece of charcoal in the fire basin finally went out. ===== CHAPTER 875 =====